Ptilonorhynchidae

Bird Families of the World is a multivolume series of handbooks, intended to serve the interests of both the professional scientist and the ever-growing body of amateur ornithologists. Each volume provides a comprehensive and accurate synthesis of our knowledge of one bird family or several related families

Seven general chapters on the biology, feeding ecology, breeding behaviour, evolutionary relationships, and conservation of the birds in the family

6 specially commissioned colour plates by Eustace Barnes, showing adults of all species and many juveniles, immatures and subspecies, plus 2 plates of colour photographs

Numerous line drawings illustrating special features and behaviour

Descriptions of each species individually, including appearance, weights, and measurements; field characters; voice; habitat and food; breeding behaviour; life cycle; and range and status (with distribution map). This provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date species-level information available

Ptilonorhynchidae

Description

The bowerbirds are unique in the avian world in that the males build elaborate 'bowers': structures of sticks, grasses or other plant stems on or close to the ground, often incorporating objects such as colourful fruits, flowers, feathers, bones, stones, shells, insect skeletons, and numerous other natural (and human-made) objects.

The highly sophisticated building, decorating, arranging, singing, and courtship posturing and dancing by males is primarily to attract and impress females. As much of it is performed in the absence of females, however, some consider it possible that males may also enjoy such activities for their own sake. The bowers and the birds' behaviour associated with them have been much studied by behavioral ecologists searching for evolutionary and ecological explanations of behavioural patterns.

The Bowerbirds is an indispensable work of reference for everyone interested in these birds.

Ptilonorhynchidae

Table of Contents

List of colour platesList of abbreviationsPlan of the bookDiagrams of bird topographyMap showing some locations mentioned in the textBoundaries of the regional maps used in the species accounts of Chapter 8PART I General chapters 1. The bowerbirds--an introduction2. Systematics and biogeography3. Ecological cycles, foraging, and other behaviour4. Morphology, demography, bower sites, structures, and their significance5. Bower site acquisition, fidelity, attendance, and courtship displays6. Breeding biology and parental care7. Evolution of mating systems and sexual selectionPART II Family, genus, and species accounts 8. Family PTILONORHYNCHIDAE 20 species in 8 generaAppendicesGlossaryBibliographyIndex

Ptilonorhynchidae

Author Information

Clifford Frith is the author of a highly-respected companion volume in the Bird Families of the World series, The Birds of Paradise. Clifford's early ornithological positions included The Natural History Museum, London, and the Royal Society of London Research Station, Aldabra Atoll, Indian Ocean. He obtained his PhD at Griffith University, Brisbane, for evolutionary studies of bowerbirds and birds of paradise. Dawn Frith obtained her PhD, in littoral zone marine biology, at London University and lectured in zoology before meeting Clifford on Aldabra Atoll, where she studied insects. Both Cliff and Dawn are private ornithologists and self-employed natural history authors, photographers, and publishers. They have worked on tropical Australasian birds, as well as various other avian, other vertebrate, and invertebrate, groups, and mangrove ecology, in the Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia, and tropical Pacific. They are Honorary Research Fellows of the Queensland Museum and joint recipients of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists' Union's D. L. Serventy Medal for contributions to ornithology.